A Mystic’s Journal August 25, 2005
The Three Phases of Illumination: Meditation Class, August 24, 2005
Thursday, August 25
Last night in meditation class, we began to study the writings of Saint Bonaventure (1221-74) from the volume Christian Mystics; Ursula King; Simon and Schuster, 1998. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations are Ursula King’s words.
During meditation I was inwardly told to come out of meditation and walk around the room, to stand near each meditator. I did so, and when standing near Serge, I was aware of the strong, unmistakable fragrance of incense. I mentioned this after meditation and Pam said that she had also been aware of the odor of incense near her, as she sat down to meditate. It seems two Divine Beings were there with us again last night, framing the class - for Pam and Serge always sit at opposite ends of the room, across from me.
As Saint Francis of Assisi had before him, St. Bonaventure ascended Mount Alvernia and had a vision of a six-winged Seraph, “whose three pairs of wings came to symbolize for him the three major phases of the soul’s ascent to God.” King continues: “For Bonaventure, contemplation is both the goal and the journey.” We had discussion on that sentence: “contemplation” here meaning meditation, or mental prayer - contemplation being the deepest mediation, the thought-free state. The goal being illumination, mystical union; the journey being the spiritual path.
In the soul’s ascent to God, Bonaventure felt prayer essential. The class decided that prayer can be classified as either mental prayer - meaning meditation or contemplation - or vocal. Vocal prayer meaning prayer using words, either spoken inwardly or aloud. Vocal prayer could be divided further into two categories: that of formal prayer or spontaneous prayer. Spontaneous prayer meaning speaking directly to God, in our own words and from our own heart. Formal prayers are the established prayers given to us by the Church and various saints; I added that some formal prayers were given to the saints from Our Lady or Christ Himself. We decided that the rosary fell between the two categories of meditation and formal vocal prayer. Meditation, in the sense that we put our attention on the mystery of each decade; vocal prayer in that we also say formal prayers either inwardly or aloud as we meditate on the mystery. For instance, as we recite the formal prayers for the first Joyful Mystery, we are meditating on the Annunciation of Our Lady. In addition, the repeated ten Hail Mary prayers become a sort of chant, which can bring us to a deeper meditation on the mystery of that decade. St. Teresa of Avila felt that mental prayer was essential in the attainment of mystical union; I added that both vocal and mental prayer, in my opinion, are essential.
I then asked why vocal prayer is considered a prelude to contemplation, or mental prayer; i.e. why must we eventually get beyond the words of vocal prayer? Trudy said because words are “things”; Pam added that words belong to the ego. I said that yes, even the finest words are from the ego; all our thoughts are ego produced. We agreed that ultimately all words and their associations come between us and the soul. Even if vocal prayer can bring us to the threshold of the soul, bring us to contemplation - we then must give even those words up, if we are to truly experience the Light of the soul and mystical union.
This concept of no thoughts within meditation is misleading. Even in meditation, we will have thoughts, thoughts will arise. In meditation, the idea is not to forcefully wipe the mind clean of all thought. The goal is to keep our attention centered on our short prayer, or mantra - and to ignore all other thoughts to the best of our ability. In life we will have thought and perception. And we will be surrounded by the thoughts and perceptions of others. Therefore, the goal is to allow thought and perception, but still retain contact with the soul, keep our attention there - both within meditation and within our daily lives. Within our meditations: when the Divine wishes all thoughts to completely cease, they will cease.
Friday, August 26
The three pairs of stages of Illumination according to St. Bonaventure:
In this entry, all words in italics are those of Ursula King, in her summation of St. Bonaventure’s important theological work Itinerarium Mentis in Deum or The Mind’s Journey to God.
1. Reflecting on the sensible, corporeal world. This discussion was an interesting one. We start our journey by thinking about the Divine in the material, sensible world - because that’s where we are. We are in the manifested universe. We first notice that the world is not what we expected it to be. This causes us to look beyond the physical world, to something beyond, to God. I said that only the most advanced clairvoyants could see the Divine everywhere, even in the forms and beings of this material universe. But that through faith and philosophy, non-clairvoyants could also achieve this, to “see” the Divine Light in all things. I asked if Bonaventure’s reflecting on the sensible world was similar to trusting in the Divine Ideas that run through our lives every moment of every day. We agreed that it was. M. mentioned the Beauty of Nature, the unfolding of a flower for example. Trudy mentioned the quality of compassion, that connectedness that we have with all other beings. I mentioned the patterns in our lives, that in retrospect we can often see the wisdom of past events, even those we dreaded or rejected. Pam said that even small things are a part of the bigger Plan; looking back we can see that things happened for a reason.
2. Entering our own minds and taking them as objects of our reflection. In other words, the use of our intelligence. Within meditation, we watch the thoughts, as objects, while still contemplating the soul. In St. Bonaventure’s schema, he assigns memory, intelligence and will as the “Trinity of powers” (his own term) of the soul. We discussed this trinity of powers, starting with memory. Without memory, we would have to absorb everything anew each day. We would not be able to learn; we would have no personal history, no past. We could not learn from our mistakes. Nor could we build on old knowledge. As a pianist, I would have to learn middle C on the piano each day - how could I possibly then perform concertos written by Rachmaninov or Chopin? At their highest: memory assists us in remembering God, intelligence in thinking about God, and will gives us the perseverance to stay on the spiritual Path, i.e. the desire to find God. On the spiritual path, the power of will is the last we relinquish: i.e. the desire to find God. In the end, even that desire must be surrendered. We then discussed how the power of will found in the soul is not personal will in the usual sense. That we must always put our personal will second to the Will of God. The three powers residing in the soul, imprinted upon the soul - memory, intelligence and will - are in their purest state within the soul. Their natural inclination is to seek the Divine. Therefore, in our deepest contemplation we can contact this trinity of powers within ourselves, and realign our memory, thinking and will. Otherwise the ego, which has solidified in us as we experience life on earth, will obscure the pure vision of the soul.
3. The third and final pair of the ascent occurs when our minds turn to what is “eternal, most spiritual and above us”, the first principle of being or God himself. (The words in quotes are those of St. Bonaventure.) Here, in the third stage, our conscious minds turn to the Eternal God. We discussed God as the first principle of being. We gave the example of God’s “I AM” to Moses. The eternal Being of the Godhead. By reflecting on pure being, we know God as unity; by reflecting on the goodness of pure being, we know God as Trinity. This sentence I found particularly beautiful. Not having read Bonaventure’s work, I can only guess at the meaning of these sentences. However, in deep contemplation, in mystical experience - we approach that state of pure being which is the soul and God. At those times, there is only the Light of the soul, or the Divine Light of Consciousness, that Consciousness which exists before the ideas or perceptions arise. In those experiences, we are united in the soul. There, all is Divine, and all is One. There is no multiplicity of either thought or perception. Just as God, in the aspect of pure Being, is undivided. Oneness, unity is the very Nature of God. Multiplicity does not arise within the Godhead, nor within the soul. It is only when the Divine unfurls Itself into first the Trinity, then into the angelic realms, and then into the manifested universes that forms and multiplicity arise. We then discussed that if we stand back far enough in our view, the unity of God is never unbroken, not even within the manifested universes - for it is a single outpouring from the God beyond God of Meister Eckhart, that then becomes the very Essence and substratum of all manifested forms, no matter which realm they arise in. Therefore, that Unity, that Oneness is never broken.
The enigmatic statement: by reflecting on the goodness of pure being, we know God as Trinity I took to mean that Goodness is an attribute, therefore is not to be found in God as pure Being. This Goodness would therefore be found only within the manifested Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, prior to manifestation and embedded in the soul.
I then went on to say that the pure Consciousness of the soul can be experienced either within contemplation or infused contemplation before mystical union. That the Goodness that St. Bonaventure speaks of, the Love aspect of the Divine, is not truly experienced until mystical union. In fact, it is how the aspirant knows that he or she has attained mystical union. This led to a discussion on the schema of St. Teresa of Avila: the three stages of the interior life, each separated by a Dark Night of the soul. After the first Dark Night we enter the Illuminative period. It is not until after the second Dark Night that we experience mystical union and the stage of the Perfect. Each stage is divided into three parts, and the very highest of the third stage is Perfection. Here I reminded the class that as human beings we can never reach perfection while incarnated in the physical body. But that perfection here means that we have become the most pure, the most perfect vehicle for the Divine. We become a pure reflection of the perfection of God and the soul, even though we ourselves could never attain that purity or perfection.
We decided that we would purchase and study St. Bonaventure’s The Mind’s Journey to God in future classes.
Saturday, August 27
Ordered a used copy of The Mind’s Journey to God on Amazon.com, and it should arrive sometime next week.
A Mystic’s Journal August 25, 2005
Moderator: figaro